Worst-Case Scenario
by Cybra
Summary: It was an ordinary day at school. Then things went horribly wrong...*WARNING: Extreme silliness ahead! Not to be taken seriously!*


Worst-Case Scenario  
By Cybra

Pure Madness Alert!  This is a Pure Madness Alert!  Nothing in this story is supposed to make sense all in the name of humor!  You have been warned!

**A/N:  Can't think of a title for this sucker except the one up top.  Heh.  It could also be called "Why You Shouldn't Let Cybra And Brad Rousse Talk to Each Other Online".  I must bow to my inspirer who helped me come up with the bare bones of this.  :::bows to Brad:::  Now finish writing "Fallen Angel"!  ^^**

**Disclaimer:  This madness is brought to you by someone who is not Craig Barlett.  The characters contained within this madness are owned by Mr. Barlett.  Please don't sue.**

It was a normal day at PS 118.  Well, as normal as normal could be at PS 118.  Principal Wartz's announcements made no sense and were given not once ounce of attention by students.  Mr. Simmons fought in his own "special" way to keep the attention of his class.

The normal day would turn into abnormal at lunchtime.

Arnold sat down with his friends, laughing at one of Gerald's jokes, when two strong arms wrapped around him, cuddling him close to their owner.

**"Helga?!"  the other boys at the table shouted in disbelief.**

"Mine!  All mine!" the suddenly insane pink-clad girl chirped, cuddling the poor football-headed boy closer.

Arnold whimpered in terror, not sure what to do, and gave a pleading look to his friends.

His friends looked at each other, stood up, and moved to another table.

"Gerald!" he wailed, trying to struggle free from Helga's iron grip.

"Better you than me, man," Gerald told his best friend.

Needless to say, Helga didn't leave poor Arnold alone all day.  When she couldn't cuddle him, she made sure to hold on to his wrist possessively, glaring at the other girls who were staring.

When the final bell rang, Helga G. Pataki gleefully raced out of the school, dragging her long-time crush behind her by the wrist.

Arnold tried to dig his heels into something, _anything!  It was no use.  No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't stop her.  Instead, he used his other hand to try to pry Helga's fingers off of his wrist (which was now turning an interesting purple and black color thanks to the bruising her grip was giving him)._

The insane blonde girl ran merrily into her house, barely missing slamming Arnold in the door as she closed it.  Unaware of the fact that Arnold was just about ready to gnaw his arm off if he had to in order to escape, she led him upstairs to her room.

The entire time, she was shouting gaily, "Mine!  All mine!"

~@~

A week passed, and no one saw neither hide nor hair of Arnold.

Gerald finally asked the obvious question as he tossed a baseball up and down into his glove, "Where do you think he is?"

"I dunno," Sid answered.

~@~

At Helga's house, Arnold rattled the bars of his cage, screaming, **"Help meeeeeeeeeeee!"**

~@~

Back at Gerald Field, Gerald stopped tossing the baseball up and down.  "Did you guys hear something?"

"'O," Sid answered with his mouth stuffed with a Mr. Nutty candy bar.

"Nope," Stinky answered, eyeballing the candy bar and thinking up some devious yet complex plot to steal it.

~@~

"Hello, _my Football Head!" the voice of Arnold's tormenter said in a singsong voice._

The poor blonde boy looked pleadingly at his captor.  "Let me go!"

Helga currently carried in her hands two dolls, one a miniature version of Arnold and one a miniature version of herself.  "But it'll make our children _sad!"_

Arnold – after having endured such torture over the past week – almost started crying until an idea popped into his head.  "But if you don't let me out, I can't get you your present."

Helga dropped her "babies" and clapped her hands excitedly.  "What'd you get me, Honey?!"

"Uh uh uh!  I have to go get it from my room…Sweetheart."  The last word was spoken through gritted teeth.

The blonde girl didn't notice as she trustingly unlocked the cage door and opened it.

Freed at last, Arnold tore out of the house, laughing insanely.  He ran down the street, heedless of Helga's shout of "Your house is _that way!"_

He ran around the entire block, taking the long way back to the boardinghouse and shouting, "I'm free!  I'm free!"

He ran past Gerald Field where all the kids stared at him.

He looked like a wreck.  His clothes were rumpled and dirty, his hair was a mess, his beloved little blue hat was almost falling off his head, and his eyes were gleaming with an insane wildness to them.

Curly looked up from the tea he was drinking out of his thermos.  "Poor chap's gone off the deep end."

The glasses-wearing boy calmly took a sip of his tea as Arnold raced merrily back to the boardinghouse.

Nobody said a word for five minutes.

"Uh…okay…" Gerald said.

"How about some baseball?" Harold asked, forgetting about Arnold running insanely past them.

"Sure."

~@~

Two weeks later, students tiptoed around the former advice-giver.  (He wasn't exactly emotionally stable enough to go to school for the first week and a half.)  They pretty much avoided him since Arnold now seemed to be living between two worlds: La La Land and Paranoia.

Despite the intense therapy Dr. Bliss was giving him, whenever Helga came within three feet of the formerly sane boy, he shrieked like a banshee, running away in fright.  Helga decided that she'd have to get sneaker and take him in his sleep, but he woke up the first time she tried it, screaming bloody murder.  She would have to wait.

In the meantime, Arnold refused to sleep.  His grandfather caught him up in his room one too many times rocking back and forth on his bed, knees to his chest and arms wrapped around his knees, chanting, "Can't sleep.  Helga'll get me.  Can't sleep.  Helga'll get me."

Of course, one can't live off of a total lack of sleep.  Eventually, Arnold's batteries began wearing down, and he finally slumped against the table to sleep during lunch.

Helga slipped up behind him and lightly grabbed him.  She whispered, "Now, he's mine…"

Though her voice was barely above a breath, Arnold woke up instantaneously, screaming for her to get away from him.

Everyone turned to see what was going on, saw Helga trying to hold on to the shrieking Arnold, and turned back to their conversations.

The pink clad girl clapped a hand over his mouth, cutting off his screams but not stopping him from whimpering in utter terror.  "We're going home."

Dragging off her victim, Helga exited the lunchroom.  She cackled maniacally as Arnold continued struggling weakly in her grip.

~@~

Upon returning home, Helga sat down and cuddled her "visitor" tightly.

Arnold whimpered, "Why are you doing this, Helga?"

Starting to squeeze him like her locket (and not noticing that he was quickly turning blue), Helga began her sonnet.  "Because I love you!  I truly love you!  I've loved you since the first time I've laid eyes on that football head of yours!  Your compassion!  Your kindness!  Your suaveness!  Words cannot describe what you are to me!  But I shall try!  You're an angel!  You're a saint!  You're a _god!"_

Arnold went limp in her arms.

Thinking he was simply overcome by joy, she ended her bizarre confession to look down at him.  "What do you think, Darling?"

Her answer was his blue face that lost some of that blue color when she loosened her grip.

"Um…I guess I shouldn't have squeezed him so hard."

~@~

She returned to check on her "visitor" a few hours later to see him curled up in a corner of the room with his knees to his chest and his arms wrapped around his knees as he rocked back and forth, staring blankly off into space and muttering something.

"Arnold my love?"

He didn't answer her.  He just kept rocking back and forth, back and forth, staring and muttering, staring and muttering.

She drew closer to listen in on his mutterings.

He muttered, "Happy place.  Happy place.  I'm in my happy place.  Nobody can get me here.  No Helga here.  Nobody but me in my happy place.  Happy place.  I'm in my happy place."

Helga quickly realized that she'd actually traumatized the love of her life and most likely scarred him for life.  She stared down at the broken, insane boy she had fallen in love with back in preschool.

She somehow made Big Bob take Arnold down to the insane asylum, and the Patakis had to pay the medical bills since it was all Helga's fault.

But Helga didn't care as she murmured, holding her locket to her chest, "Oh, _Gerald!  My love!"_

~@~

**"AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"**

Arnold sat up in bed, sweating profusely and breathing laboriously.  He held a hand over his heart, feeling its wild beating.

"A dream…" he whispered. "It…It was only a dream…"

He laughed nervously then jumped as Phil threw open his door.

"What happened?!" Phil demanded, searching for a prowler with a raised baseball bat in his hand.

"S-Sorry, Grandpa.  I-I had a nightmare…" he sheepishly told the old man.

Grandpa stared for a few moments at his grandson before he chuckled, lowering his bat and walking over to the bed to hug his quivering grandson.  "A nightmare, eh?  Been a while since you had one of those."

Still sweating, shaking, and breathing heavily, Arnold nodded his head.  The images and sounds burned into his skull wouldn't leave him be.

"Well, I guess this teaches us a lesson, now doesn't it?" Phil asked, releasing the shaken boy from his embrace.

"Yeah.  No more Triple Spicy Tacos before I go to bed."

"That's right.  Well, sweet dreams, Short Man!"

"G'night, Grandpa."

Phil left the room to let his grandson try to sleep the rest of the night.

The next day nobody came up to Arnold for advice.

They simply couldn't figure out _why Arnold was so twitchy._


End file.
